


Nothing Ever Changes in Storybrooke -- One Shots

by lizandletdie



Series: Nothing Ever Changes in Storybrooke [2]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2017-05-04
Packaged: 2018-09-22 04:13:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9583106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizandletdie/pseuds/lizandletdie
Summary: Short drabbles meant as follow-ups to Nothing Ever Changes in Storybrooke.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> JOYLEE56: NothingEverChanges Belle and/or Gold -- Does Henry call you Mom and Dad? How did you feel the first time he did?
> 
> Anonymous said: Nothing Ever Changes in Storybrooke prompt: Just after leaving the asylum. Belle guesses that Henry is her child and Mr. Gold is his father.

Belle felt like she should remember the baby. He seemed to recognize her, and that had to mean something, didn’t it? She didn’t feel like a mother, yet here she was with a baby. It made sense in a strange way. A man with a baby and no mother and she had been missing. It just fit. 

She didn’t know what to do about the strange circumstance of Mr. Gold, though. He’d not offered her a first name, and he hadn’t told her that this was her baby or that he was her husband or who or what she really was. All she knew was that he was Mr. Gold and she was Belle, and Henry was between them.

Henry was a babbler. Belle liked that about him, because sometimes it felt like there was a silence in her brain that shouldn’t be there, and his voice drove away the silence. She was feeding him and he was trying desperately to swipe the spoon away from her, and she knew from experience that him doing so would just end up with the spoon on the floor.

Mr. Gold was behind her making coffee and she could hear his occasional chuckle as she tried to trick Henry into letting her feed him the oatmeal and if he wasn’t careful she was going to let Henry have the spoon and see how much he was laughing when there was oatmeal on him and not just her.

Henry shrieked happily and looked at her, reaching his little hands towards her and whining.

“Mama,” he whined. “Mamamamamamama…gimme mama gimme!”

She just about dropped the spoon, and she heard something clattering to the floor behind her with a whispered swear. Henry hadn’t ever called her that, and certainly neither of them had ever encouraged it. She glanced back over her shoulder to Mr. Gold, who was watching them both with wide eyes and coffee splattered on his cuffs.

It was an unnerving feeling to be sitting there between the two with Henry babbling and still trying to seize the spoon as Gold watched her with a look on his face between horror and longing. After a few seconds, Henry grabbed the bowl of oatmeal off his tray and began banging it, grabbing her attention back as she tried to finish his breakfast.

They never spoke of it again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ANONYMOUS: Nothing Ever Changes in Storybrooke prompt: When Henry was little. Gold finds that Belle and Henry named Henry's toys after the characters of the stories he told.

“Nooo,” Rumplestiltskin heard Henry shout. “Not Prince Charming!”

That got Rumplestiltskin’s attention. The last he’d seen, the six year old had been playing with some toy dinosaurs while Belle sat on the floor with him.

He peeked his head into the room and saw them still sitting there, Belle holding a stegosaurus and Henry with a pile of t-rexes and triceratops in front of him.

“He must die!” Belle said in a slightly high pitched voice, moving the stegosaurus as though it was talking which was followed by a slightly evil sounding giggle.

“You’ll never find him!” Henry replied through a brontosaurus. “Snow White will stop you, Evil Queen!”

“Not with my magic!” the stegosaurus said, followed by noises that Rumplestiltskin thought were supposed to be fireballs that had the brontosaurus ducking.

“Come on, Snow,” Henry said with the t-rex and the brontosaurus. “We’ll go get a potion from Rumplestiltskin!”

He bounced them away from the stegosaurus quickly.

“Which one is Rumplestiltskin, again?” Belle asked, sorting through the pile of dinosaurs. “Was he the raptor?”

“No,” Henry replied. “Triceratops.”

“Right,” she said as she grabbed that one from the pile and set the stegosaurus down. “My mistake.”

He didn’t dare watch much longer because he didn’t want them to think he was laughing at them, but the voice that Belle put on for “him” was just about the funniest thing he’d ever heard in his life.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said: Nothing Ever Changes in Storybrooke prompt: There are people who mock Gold's strange family, especially an useless, absent-minded Belle. Usually Gold just ignores them and Belle doesn't seem to care. But sometimes Henry protests.

Henry loved Belle. He was pretty sure Uncle Gold loved her, too, but for the most part everybody else avoided her and he didn’t know why. Kids at his school made fun of her to him sometimes for forgetting a lot so maybe that was it. She _did_ forget a lot, but everybody forgot a lot and he couldn’t figure out why nobody else noticed that. She didn’t always seem to remember how old he was or what his favorite food was or what he’d gotten for Christmas, but nobody else did, either. Sometimes it was like he was the only one moving forward. he thought Uncle Gold might know what was going on, but he didn’t talk to him about it.

It was _weird_ , though. It was weird that Henry was the only one who ever moved up grades. It was weird that nobody ever had birthdays besides him, or if they did it was always the same one. It was weird that they didn’t notice him getting older while they all stayed the same. He didn’t know why people thought Belle was so much weirder than them. Nobody ever said anything in front of Uncle Gold, but sometimes they said things when Henry could hear them and he hated that. She couldn’t help it when she got lost sometimes or forgot what she was doing in the middle of doing it. That’s why she had a cell phone with numbers programmed into it – so if she got to the grocery store and forgot how to get home she could call somebody to come get her.

When Henry was real little, he remembered his uncle getting really worried about Belle being lost, but by the time he was nine it was just part of their lives. Belle would get lost and somebody would go get her. A lot of times it was Uncle Gold, but sometimes Henry went by himself now. He had just turned ten, after all, and he knew his way around town really well. It wasn’t that big and it felt really grown up to go get her.

“Hi Belle,” he said cheerfully as he spotted her in front of the drug store where she’d been waiting for him. She’d been going to the grocery store but he didn’t see any bags, so she probably forgot. That was okay, he could go with her and help buy stuff. He liked getting to go with her, because it was easy to sneak in ice cream or candy or whatever snacks he wanted. It could be his payment for picking her up so his uncle didn’t have to.

Belle smiled at him in greeting and shifted her purse on her shoulder as she went to meet him.

“Are you ready to go?” she asked like he hadn’t just arrived to pick her up, but Henry was used to her being a little weird by now.

“Can I get a new comic book first?” he asked. He knew his uncle wouldn’t care that much, and he’d come all the way down here anyway.

“Sure,” Belle replied quickly, looking around for the display like he didn’t buy comics with her a couple times a month. He didn’t correct her, instead he just walked over to the display to see what had come in new since the last time he’d looked while Belle started wandering through the aisles like she was looking for something even though she’d been here a half hour at least already. And that’s when he heard the whispers.

“I’m telling you, she’s been here all day,” the pharmacist said to the blonde lady and a dark haired man with a beard who were both at the counter. “It’s just not right.”

“She _is_ a little dim,” the lady replied. “But I think she’s probably harmless.”

“I don’t see how he can expect the kid to grow up _normal_ being raised around that woman,” the bearded man said. “It’s not like she’s taking care of him.”

They obviously thought they were quiet enough not to be heard, or else they didn’t see Henry behind the rack, and he didn’t want to cause a scene. It was bad enough hearing people talk about Belle like that, but he didn’t want _her_ to hear it if he could help it. So he just kept going through his books. The blonde lady said something Henry couldn’t quite hear, but then the bearded man was talking again.

“It’s probably a sex thing,” he said knowingly. “I mean, think about it – it’s a perfect setup for Gold. It’s not like she can tell anybody, you know?”

Henry knew enough about sex to know that was wrong, and also that it was an awful thing to say about somebody. He felt his stomach sink and he wasn’t sure what he should do. He felt really young all of a sudden when he’d been feeling like a grownup just a few minutes ago. He wanted to go find Belle and leave the store, but he also wanted to scream and yell and cry and be angry. If he told Uncle Gold, he’d take care of everything. But Henry wanted to be a hero, and heroes stood up for people who needed help. Belle needed help.

He took a comic off of the metal rack and made his way to the cash register with his head held high as he dropped it on the counter. The three grownups had gotten really quiet as soon as he walked over, but he knew what to say now and as soon as he was done buying his comic he looked right at the man with the beard and waited until he met his eye.

“If you’re not going to say anything nice, you shouldn’t say anything at all,” he said as cheerfully as he could before turning and rushing to join Belle. They still had to get groceries, and he wanted to get out of here and back home where it was safe. Henry needed the savior to come soon, but more than that he thought Belle needed her to come. Once the savior was in Storybrooke he just _knew_ everything would be better for everybody, but especially for Belle.

It was time for the happy endings to come back to the fairy tales.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said: Nothing Ever Changes in Storybrooke prompt: When they go on a picnic, Belle and Henry find Regina's grave. Gold can not explain well, but Belle thinks it is something good for Henry and prays to it to watch over the boy.

Belle liked to take Henry out to the churchyard for picnics sometimes. Mr. Gold never came with them, but she didn’t mind. There was a playground and a lot of space, and if it wasn’t Sunday they could have the whole place largely to themselves.

Sometimes, Henry liked to go on the playground after eating but other times he’d want to go exploring and she’d end up following him through the fields looking for pirates or mummies or whatever a little boy found to capture his imagination. He’d seen something about archaeologists on TV a few days before, so he’d made a beeline for the cemetery. She personally wasn’t sure whether it was too scary to go in, but before she could even voice her concerns he was inside the large wrought iron gate and dashing around excitedly looking for ‘treasures.’

Henry disappeared from her sight, and suddenly Belle felt an inexplicable panic rise up in her throat. She took off after him, calling his name and chasing him past the mausoleums before nearly slamming into him as he stood in front of one of them with a peculiar look on his face. Belle took a deep breath to calm her nerves before following his gaze to the mausoleum he’d been staring so intently at.

“That’s my name,” Henry said seconds before Belle had a chance to register the word _Mills_ above the door.

“It is,” she replied, not really sure what to say about it. She’d known that Henry had a family before he’d come to live with Gold, but she’d never really seen any evidence of them before now. She wasn’t Henry’s mother, but she was his _mother_. But he’d had a real mother before her, too.

“I wanna go inside,” he said, slipping away from her and opening the door before she could stop him. It felt strange to walk in here, as though she were intruding even though Henry certainly had every right to go in and she was there with him.

There were two coffins resting inside the mausoleum, one looking much older than the other, though clearly neither had been cared for in a long time and there was a thick coating of dust. Henry rubbed some of the dust off one of the coffins to reveal the words _Regina Mills_ and then went to the other and dusted off the other nameplate. As soon as the name _Henry Mills_ was revealed, she grabbed Henry by the shoulders and pulled him back to her. He didn’t fight her, instead drawing even closer and letting her know she wasn’t the only one unsettled by this whole thing..

“It’s time to go home,” she said quickly, pulling him out of the mausoleum and holding tight to his hand all the way home.

 

“Your mother named you after her father,” Gold had explained when Henry had asked him about the tomb that evening. “I’m sorry I didn’t think to tell you about it.”

“So that was my mom and grandpa?” Henry asked, looking between Gold and Belle curiously.

“It was,” Gold replied. “If you like, I can take both of you back there this weekend.”

Henry looked thoughtful for a little while before finally nodding in acceptance and letting the matter drop.

 

The second time they visited the graveyard was a far more somber affair. Belle had made Henry put on a nice shirt and she’d brought flowers. She wasn’t really sure _why_ , exactly. Belle had never met Henry’s mother and certainly not his grandfather, but it felt like they should do something for the graves that marked Henry’s first family.

Henry didn’t seem particularly disturbed this time. The addition of his uncle and the lack of a mystery as to the identity of the other Henry Mills seemed to have taken a lot of the mystery out of it for him. For Belle, though, knowing who these people were just made it feel important to her to maintain that connection even if he didn’t necessarily know that he needed it yet.

Belle made it a point to go back to the mausoleum once a week after that. Henry knew she was going, and sometimes he tagged along, but eventually she was going alone. Someone needed to dust the coffins and keep the floor swept, and somebody should bring them flowers. She’d never met these people in her life, but without Regina bringing him here, Henry never would have been in the town and Belle loved Henry and that was that.

It was a little routine she kept as well as she could. Mr. Gold never said anything about it one way or the other – he told her that she didn’t need to feel obligated, but he never told her that she shouldn’t do it, either. It was something to do when Henry was at school, and something about doing it made her feel more connected to this family and this town. Sometimes, it was almost like remembering.


End file.
